On Monday, a familiar scene of protesters rallying against a conservative commentator hosted by Young Americans for Freedom at Utah unfolded at the College of Social Work building at the University of Utah.
“Hey hey, ho ho, transphobia has got to go!” Protesters chanted outside the event, while hundreds of people waited for a chance to be seated in the auditorium.
According to Dax Lowe, recruitment chair for YAF Utah, there were 300 people in the auditorium, but he estimated around 1,000 people tried to attend the event. Nearly 2,000 people watched the livestream on YouTube.
As the protest continued outside, people waiting in line for the event began singing the national anthem.
The event featured speaker Michael Knowles, political commentator and host of The Michael Knowles Show on the conservative news site The Daily Wire. Posts from YAF advertising the event proclaimed “No child is in the wrong body” and “Men can’t become women.”
Knowles gained notoriety last year when he said “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
In response, protesters on Monday repeatedly chanted, “Eradicate Michael Knowles from public life.”
According to one campus police officer, about 30 law enforcement officers were present at the event, including both university police and Utah Highway Patrol.
“We are not a threat,” one protester shouted in response to the police presence.
Members of Armed Queers Salt Lake City, a group that has worked with Mecha before, were also present at the event acting as security. William Butterfield, a member of Armed Queers, said this security included de-escalating, preventing physical violence and “ensuring that no one goes to jail.”
Butterfield added it’s “always important to agitate when fascists organize.”
Meanwhile, inside the crowded building, pride flags greeted those waiting to see Knowles.
Jacey Thornton is the executive director of Project Rainbow, a group that supports LGBTQ+ visibility and provided the flags displayed in the CSW building.
Thornton said “it’s not happenstance” that YAF Utah was holding an event in the social work building.
“They’re being very intentional in what they do,” Thornton said. “They were trying to bait us to come and have a reaction and a response, so this is our response.”
Lowe said he would have liked to see more American flags rather than pride flags.
“I believe that’s what unifies all of us no matter what, or who you identify as,” Lowe added.
As far as why YAF Utah decided to bring Knowles to the social work building, Lowe said he couldn’t speak to that, but the group invited him because they think he represents the group as a whole.
“We thought he would be a great speaker to come and speak at the U, where a lot of the conservative students don’t feel like they can show up to events because they don’t feel as included,” Lowe said.
Lowe, speaking for himself, said he resonated with what Knowles said about President Joe Biden’s proclamation of March 31 as International Transgender Day of Visibility, which coincided with Easter Sunday this year.
“It’s great to be inclusive, but to cut out someone else’s main holiday to make another day for a group that I feel is personally well exposed to these days, it’s not fair to us as Christians who do worship on Easter and who celebrate that as one of our main holidays,” he said.
The international holiday that recognizes trans people has been celebrated on March 31 since 2009. Throughout his presidency, Biden has proclaimed Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31.
Mecha and YAF have a history of conflict with each other dating back to last semester when Mecha lost their university sponsorship. This is the third far-right commentator YAF Utah has hosted on campus during this school year.
Julio Irungaray, an organizer for Mecha, was one of seven students charged with misdemeanors for protesting YAF’s watch party of an anti-trans film in November.
“The university administration, they want to give us charges because we stood up for the trans community,” he said in a speech at the protest on Monday. “We stood up for the trans community, we got charges and we’re still fighting it.”
In an interview with the Chronicle, Irunguray said he and other protesters being charged are being represented pro bono by a lawyer and are going to court to fight the charges together.
“We’re going to court as a group, and being represented by a lawyer as a group, because we always feel that solidarity and not doing everything by yourself is the best way,” he said.
Irunguray added protesting is an important piece of political organizing on campus.
“I would just like to say, all the trans people in the community here on campus, all the social workers, all these people that claim to fight for the most marginalized and the most oppressed — this is what fighting actually looks like,” he said. “It’s coming out to the streets, it’s direct action, it’s joining political organizations like Mecha.”
Protesters also held a moment of silence for Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary student from Oklahoma who died after an altercation in a school bathroom that allegedly began as a result of bullying over Benedict’s gender identity. After an investigation into their death, it was ruled Benedict did not die from injuries sustained in the fight.
A speaker at the protest said Benedict’s death came after “transphobic legislation attacks.” In 2022, Oklahoma’s governor signed a bill requiring public school students to only use the bathroom correlating with their sex assigned at birth.
During this year’s legislative session, Utah passed H.B. 257, which restricts transgender Utahns’ access to sex-designated private areas, including public bathrooms.
One speaker at the protest said YAF is complicit in a “trans genocide,” and mentioned H.B. 257 as one of the results of that oppression.
“What a way to collapse our lives, to flatten all our complex lives into nothing,” they said.
Mat • Apr 9, 2024 at 4:53 pm
There needs to be a bit more care in remaining unbiased with an article like this. Even small bits like the following demonstrate the bias: “After an investigation into their death, it was ruled Benedict did not die from injuries sustained in the fight.”
The passive sentence there, “it was ruled” gives the impression the findings are neutral, but actually, the finding was by police (police whose job performance might be negatively scrutinized had the findings been different.) “After an investigation into their death, Tulsa police claimed the death was not the result of injuries sustained in the fight.” Your job as reporters is to report what people say, not give some institutions (like police) complete force of authority by the passive construction of the sentence.
Cindy Solomon-Klebba • Apr 9, 2024 at 3:56 pm
Lowe seems ignorant of the fact that many trans people ARE Christians. His implication falls into the old and tired fallacy that LGBTQ people are not also people of faith. I celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility BECAUSE I am a Christian and recognize that God loves ALL of the rainbow people.
Whether you are a person of faith or not, it is dishonest to allow a small minority of conservatives to control the narrative and perpetuate the lie that God’s love is somehow limited. EVERY time they tell the lie, we must counter it with the truth.
Stay strong. You are loved. You are worthy. You are enough.
Rev. Cindy Solomon-Klebba
Miles Wright • Apr 9, 2024 at 3:25 pm
There seems to be confusion (if not, deliberate distortion of) the left’s stance on free speech. Free speech is to be advocated for, yet it is childish to insist that inflammatory, incorrect and/or biggotted statements will go without response. When right wing and moderate opinions are opposed it is not simply because they’re discomforting or contrary to our interests as activists. It is because politics is an expression of social science, and incorrect ideas will be opposed just as rigorously as they would be in any other scientific field. This sentiment that “all ideas must be respected” is misbegotten from the very start.
Jennifer • Apr 9, 2024 at 2:03 pm
A thought – how is it that a group on campus can host a speaker calling for the eradication of a group of people and have it not be considered hate speech? Since there seems to be stricter rules for protesting such a speaker than the actual speakers allowed on campus, would the U find it more acceptable if a group like Mecha hosted a speaker calling for the eradication of right wing groups on campus? Just wondering if there is a double standard being applied here.
Ben • Apr 9, 2024 at 1:25 pm
Julio and other Mecha leaders/organizers were charged with misdemeanor not because they protest YAF’s watch party event, but rather because how they protested. Both the US Constitution and the U of U student policy 1-600, allows students to peacefully protest. However, when Mecha and other pro-trans students started shoutout death threats or telling members of YAF to “go kill yourself”, —which all of these threats and many others were caught on video —they violated the Constitution and U of U policy. The leaders of Mecha should consider themselves lucky that the misdemeanors charges are the only legal issues they’re facing. Also, they did rightfully lose their U of U’s sponsorship, but in all honesty, all of those members/students who yelled out such horrific threats and sayings should have been expelled for their blatant disregard for the student’s code of conduct.